Coubrough’s Broken Dream

Coubrough’s Broken DreamSpeight’s Coast to Coast contender,
James Coubrough, has broken his ankle and along with it his
dream of winning the world title event.Following last year’s fourth place finish in
his first attempt and the Speight’s Coast to Coast One Day
world championship, James Coubrough was tipped as one of the
men most likely to tumble five time winner Richard Ussher.
But a training mishap on the legendary course has
highlighted why the Speight’s Coast to Coast is New
Zealand’s toughest multisport event.

The 31 year
old Wellingtonian had been training full time in
Christchurch during December. On a two day boot-camp on the
Goat Pass mountain run route between Christmas and New Year
he broke his ankle on a river crossing.“I’d run the section from Big Boulders to
Goat Pass three times and was really happy with my route
finding and fitness and coordination,” explained
Coubrough.

“I was actually thinking about doing it
once more, but on a river crossing near Goat Pass I jumped
from one boulder to another and as I was in the air I was
thinking ‘Oh, this is a big jump and that’s a slippery
boulder’.

“I actually made it ok, but when I
landed I heard a big crack and thought, ‘That didn’t
sound good’.

Coubrough managed to catch himself on
a rock as he fell and dragged himself out of the river.

“I tried standing and it wasn’t terrible, so I
figured it must be a bad sprain,” he said. “So I decided
to try & walk out because the weather forecast wasn’t
good.”

Coubrough had been staying in Goat Pass
hut, so he hobbled up the Pass, packed his gear and
continued down into the Mingha Valley where he stopped to
soak his ankle in the cold mountain water.

As the
shock wore off he found standing harder and harder. Luckily
fellow Wellingtonian Liam Drew ran past and said he’d
alert the D.O.C. office at Arthur’s Pass.

Four
hours later the rain had started and help hadn’t arrived,
so Coubrough set of his locater beacon. A rescue helicopter
eventually picked him up on the Mingha river flats and
whisked him away to Christchurch Hospital where x-rays
revealed a cracked ankle bone that surgeons screwed back
together and set in plaster.

“I’m pretty
gutted,” said Coubrough. The doctors told me to expect a
three to six month recovery before returning to training.
“So I guess all I can do is start thinking about next
year.”

Coubrough was one of a group of young up
and comers - along with Wanaka’s Dougal Allan and Braden
Currie, Whakatane’s Sam Clark and Christchurch’s Luke
Vaughn – scrapping for Richard Ussher’s spot on top of
the multisport world.

The former national mountain
running champion and representative was the only athlete to
truly challenge Ussher last year before inexperience and bad
luck saw him slip from second to fourth in the final hour of
the 11 hour, 243k race across the South Island.

The
Wellington builder, however, isn’t the only favourite
struggling for form. Richard Ussher himself has been unsure
of his status after a busy year of international racing had
left him with extreme fatigue. Dougal Allan, the Speight’s
Coast to Coast runner up for the past three years, has been
battling a wrist injury, and Luke Vaughn recently slashed
his shin to the bone and is unlikely to start.

With
so many of the favourites either scratched or struggling for
form, the 2013 Speight’s Coast to Coast is shaping up as a
wide open race of attrition.

A total of seven new areas will be opened up to oil and gas exploration under its block offer tendering system, as the New Zealand government seeks to concentrate activity in a few strategically chosen areas. More>>

“The Prime Minister reassured New Zealanders that ‘post the passing of this law, will you all of a sudden find thousands of workers who are denied having a tea break? The answer is absolutely not’... Cotton On is proposing to remove tea and meal breaks for workers in its safety sensitive distribution centre. How long before other major chains try and follow suit?” More>>